The role of oxygen in solid‐state polymerization. I. Acrylamide and its solid solutions

It has been shown that the presence of oxygen has little effect on the ESR spectrum of acrylamide. On the other hand, the spectrum of propionamide is markedly changed and shows sharply increased decay rates with oxygen. The behavior of solid solutions of the two is intermediate and depends on the relative concentrations of the two materials. The polymerization is markedly decreased in the solid solutions when oxygen is present. The polymerization data are thus consistent with those derived from the ESR spectra. These effects are interpreted in terms of the crystal structure of the materials and the polymerization mechanism.